Candid Coaches: Will a woman be the head coach of a Division I men’s basketball team by 2030?

CBS Sports college basketball insiders Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander spent a month surveying 100-plus Division I men’s basketball coaches for our annual Candid Coaches series. They polled across the sport’s landscape: some of the biggest names in college basketball, but also small-school assistants in low-major leagues. Coaches agreed to share unfiltered opinions in exchange for anonymity. We asked 10 questions and are posting the results over a three-week span.

Our Candid Coaches series has been a staple of CBS Sports’ offseason college basketball coverage dating back to 2012. Each year, we cycle in a variety of noteworthy questions, most of which haven’t been asked previously.

On rare occasions, there is a topic worth returning to many years after we first asked it. Today’s question isn’t exactly the one we polled coaches on 10 years ago, but it’s in essence the same. And in an ever-progressive period of collegiate sports, we thought it appropriate to circle back and get a new temperature check. In 2014 we asked a wide swath of men’s D-I coaches: Do you think a woman will be the head coach of a men’s D-I team in the next 25 years?

The question gave men’s D-I basketball a runway until 2039. A full quarter-century into the future!

Their response?

• Yes: 58 percent
• No: 42 percent

It was an encouraging response, but I remember setting the timeline for 25 years because we weren’t convinced that 20 years was more likely than not.

Ten years on, we shrunk the timeline significantly and asked the question again. Here’s how coaches voted and their opinions on it.

Will a woman be the head coach of a men’s D-I team by 2030?

Quotes that stood out

Those who voted yes

• “Yes, there will be more than one. Several have already started to make great strides on the men’s side professionally. It’s a matter of when, not if.”
• “Yes, for sure, it’s 2024. In my experience over the last eight years I have looked for women to hire and could not find any interest. Not sure how many women are in the market for men’s basketball or want to do it.”  
• “You see it at the G League level now, and the NBA will have one sooner or later, given the rising number of assistant coaches, and I think college historically follows NBA trends four-to-six years after they happen. There are certainly some very deserving coaches on the women’s side. Everyone looks at Dawn Staley and expects it to be her, given her pedigree and level of success, but her situation at South Carolina is better than 98% of men’s jobs in college basketball. So it’s not always about the school’s willingness to hire a woman, but also does a woman that is accomplished enough want to take a ‘step down’ from some really good/secure jobs. That being said, I wouldn’t be shocked.”
• “Yes, but not at a power program. It won’t be down in the South. It could be a West Coast school, where I’m out here and I could see it happen at a Riverside or Northridge. A woman president, woman AD. I think it’s a real possibility.” 
• “More women are coaching now. You don’t see as many assistants on the men’s side, but head coaches, they’re going to come from the WNBA and there’s more popularity and more ADs are going to take a chance on hiring. They’re starting off as DOBOs (directors of basketball operations) now. I was looking at maybe hiring one when I was a head coach. That’s the way it’s going.”
• “There are very few areas left in our society where gender roles are rigid. If for no other reason than there will be a decision-maker in a position to make this happen, I think it will happen sooner than later.”
• “The WNBA now matters. People care about women’s basketball. Women are making moves on NBA benches.” 
• “I think decision-makers (head coaches included) will realize there are a lot of great female coaches who just need an opportunity. Once they have the job, they will do great. A lot of women are being hired in coaching roles in both the NBA and high school/AAU. Unsure exactly why it hasn’t happened in college yet. I don’t think today’s players care whether they’re being coached by males or females. I think stereotypes/worry comes from the older generation.”
• “They have to, and I think it will come from somebody taking (promoting) an assistant. I know there have been women assistants, but a higher-level program will take [this] on. You’re looking to make a mark and be different. Come on, man, we now have five assistant coaches and you can go on the road recruiting? If you want to make a mark in recruiting, especially with the moms.”
• “I honestly could see it, but at a low-major. Someone that wants to get clicks and a big media response. I just don’t see the blue bloods doing something like this.”
• “If you look at our country, even the political landscape, five years ago I would’ve said no chance. But heck, in the last two weeks in the political landscape, it’s made a lot of people, myself included, change our perspective.”

Those who voted no

• “No. Only because I think it will need to be someone that is already coaching on a winning D-I staff with experience (like Becky Hammon did in NBA). Not aware of anyone like that right now. But it’s coming.” 
• “Tough question. Not super opinionated either way. Gut says no just because I don’t see any female assistant in college that’s on that trajectory currently, but wouldn’t be surprised if it happened.”
• “There are too many people still holding onto the thought that women can’t coach men.”
• “We aren’t that far away from 2030 and there aren’t many (female) assistant coaches. It would take a really progressive AD or outside-the-box thinker to hire a woman, like a current head coach having a lot of success.” 
• “Is this something a woman would even want to do? Hard for me to see both a school and a woman being willing to make this a reality. “
• “There are only one or two female assistants in the country. None at a high level. And the only head coaches that get hired without recruiting experience or having dealt with NIL are former NBA players or NBA coaches. Dawn Staley is the only one who could do it and she has too good of a thing going at South Carolina.”
• “While I don’t believe there will be a woman head men’s basketball coach by 2030, I do think the possibility is greater than ever. With the increased visibility of women’s basketball, I believe an elite women’s coach such as a Dawn Staley could get a men’s head coaching job if she actively pursued it. However, with the compensation for women’s jobs steadily increasing, particularly at the highest levels, I don’t know if the incentive is great enough for someone of Dawn Staley’s stature to take such a risk.”
• “I just don’t think they will gain the respect to run a men’s college team in today’s game, with the transfer portal and recruiting. I am not saying a woman would not be qualified, but with the portal, I believe the head coach has to be firm and tough in order to maintain the locker room and character of a team. In my opinion, there’s going to be a lot of disgruntled players.”
• “I’m all for it. It’s getting closer — hopefully we will have a woman president soon — but 2030 still seems too soon. We haven’t even embraced having women assistants yet, like the NBA, even though we have more positions.”
• “I say no for this reason: They don’t have to. Women’s basketball has grown to the point where they’re making more money, there’s more eyes on it, the WNBA is flourishing.” 

The takeaway

When we asked the question in 2014, Becky Hammon had recently been hired as an assistant with the San Antonio Spurs. There was a thought, then, that Hammon might eventually be the first female head coach in NBA history. Maybe she still will, but for now she’s taken the WNBA route and is coaching the reigning back-to-back champs, the Las Vegas Aces. (Hammon also turned down Colorado State’s overtures in 2018 to be the head coach of its men’s basketball program.)

In many ways it feels the basketball culture has evolved in a positive direction from where it was a decade ago. And it’s encouraging that, despite our question allowing only six more years of runway, a shade more than 6 out of 10 coaches we polled believe there will be a woman hired to run a D-I men’s basketball program by 2030. 

Then again, nine years ago, in 2015, we asked coaches if they’d be open to hiring a woman as an assistant by the year 2018: 75% said no. The majority of coaches we surveyed then were certainly open to the idea, but most wanted someone else to break the mold first. Those coaches correctly predicted the future, damning as their accuracy was. In fact, women still aren’t receiving as many opportunities as they should in coaching. 

According to a 2023 survey that was reported on by the Associated Press: “Women held just 42% of head coaching positions of women’s teams in NCAA Division I — a slight increase from the previous season — as well as 35.6% in Division II and 43.8% in Division III. For all three divisions combined, women filled 41.2% of head coaching positions and 50.3% of assistant coaching positions for women’s teams.”

There is still a bigger issue of hiring tendencies for women across college athletics, though at least the trend lines seem to be (slowly) improving. But here in 2024, there still aren’t many female assistants in the men’s game. Corin Adams recently served as an assistant at Loyola Maryland under Tavaras Hardy, but that staff was flipped this spring following a sixth straight sub-.500 season. She’s not current in men’s basketball. Edniesha Curry was an assistant for Maine men’s basketball from 2018-21 before taking a job with the Portland Trail Blazers.

Even as the NCAA just this year changed a rule to allow as many as five assistant coaches (up from three), we haven’t seen an infusion of women into the men’s game. These decisions fall on head coaches, not athletic directors, and given the increasing numbers of women working in assistant-coach roles in the NBA and NFL, it’s a bad look collectively on men’s college basketball that we haven’t seen at least a slight uptick as of yet.

It also makes predicting who will be the woman to finally do this more difficult to identify.

It doesn’t need to be Hammon or Staley or even current WNBA coaches Cheryl Reeve and Stephanie White, either. (Though I’d welcome the opportunity to cover them, for sure.) If an AD wants to pursue them, and any of those women see it as a chance worth taking, great. But as many coaches noted, women’s basketball is increasing in popularity by the month. The money-making opportunities, in addition to the marketing, only continue to get better. It’s terrific. (But the men’s game, for the most part, still pays much better.)

Of course, there’s no reason a woman should HAVE to coach men in order to validate her ability as a coach. Hopefully, more and more people understand that. However, men shouldn’t explicitly be the candidate pool to coach men, particularly with the ever-increasing population of talented and smart coaches in basketball.

It speaks well of a sport, any sport, to have gender diversity across its coaching ranks. Men’s college basketball has lagged behind for far too long.

I agree with the coaches who voted yes in this poll, but I think it’s going to be close. The first one, I think, will probably be a woman with a respected track record as a head coach in women’s basketball, be it college or the WNBA. My guess is the second or third or fourth that winds up guiding a men’s D-I program takes the pathway of working as an assistant on the men’s side first and getting years of experience before earning the promotion.

Whenever it happens — and it will happen eventually, even if it’s not by the end of this decade — hopefully it will feel as historic as it does natural. Because it shouldn’t be viewed as a gimmick or a publicity grab. It should be a hiring made based on qualification. It should be a moment of deserved arrival. Whenever it happens, it will be long overdue. 

Previously in Candid Coaches …

• Who will be this season’s best team?
• Who will be this season’s best player?
• Who was the best coaching hire this offseason?
• What is the most amount of NIL money somebody has asked you or your staff to pay for a player?  
• Which programs do you believe have the best NIL situations?
• Should players who don’t transfer receive a bonus year of eligibility?